Paul Virant is going to be on Iron Chef!

I don't know if this is common knowledge yet, but I know someone who works at Vie, and he mentioned that the chef, Paul Virant, is planning to tape an Iron Chef show in about a month. Unfortunately, I know nothing more than that, but I am still quite excited to see him on the show. I wonder who he will pick to go up against? If he wants a handicap, I would pick Iron Chef Michael Symon, but I think it would be more fun to beat someone like Batali (better bragging rights).

It's funny -- after the first couple of appearances, we haven't seen much of Symon, and I think Morimoto only shows up for a couple pre-planned ones. Then again, Cora is seldom called upon either.

I think we've got two kinds of challengers: ones who want to knock Flay down, and ones who want to put in a good show against Batali (who hasn't lost a battle in two years -- this week's is very, very close)

I'm still sad I was out of town when Batali was in Chicago a couple of weeks ago for a book signing for his new cookbook. I would have loved to get a chance to meet him! He's always been my favorite iron chef. He seems to have far more fun cooking than anyone else does on that show.

It is always fun to see Chef Batali work in the kitchen on Iron Chef. He usually has a few quips with Alton, and he somehow seems to smile a lot during the cooking. If only we had Tast-a-vision TVs available to try the finished products.

Has anyone ever seen a blog from one of the many judges in which they talk about some of their favorite dishes? I always wonder if what they say is really what they think about a dish, at least in the context of "Is this really a dish you would order and be elated about at a restaurant?"

borborigmy wrote:Has anyone ever seen a blog from one of the many judges in which they talk about some of their favorite dishes? I always wonder if what they say is really what they think about a dish, at least in the context of "Is this really a dish you would order and be elated about at a restaurant?"

Michael Ruhlman was a judge during the 'search for the new iron chef' run and he commented several times on his blog about the process. I don't see any tags, so it might be little work to search for the relevant posts. I imagine the search bar on the upper-right side of the main page, though, would be helpful, too.